Feast of Saints (12 page)

She put the red-velvet suited Allegrezza board back up on the easel.

“That’s what we need, some real costume work. Do you have any other ideas for costumes?”

It was Jake who smoothly interposed. “She does,” he said, snapping open a slim folder that he had carried into the room. It contained multiple slick copies of the haute couture, period drawings of Allegrezza that Jake had taken with him when he left her house last week. Monty passed Lilly’s costume drawings around the table.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said to the pin-striped man to his left. “Who do we need to hire to make these?”

Leafing through the drawings, the goggle-eyed executive whistled quietly under his breath. “Someone expensive,” he said, looking at Frances.

Frances didn’t bat an eye, giving no indication of whether she intended to pull any strings to make that happen.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by Alison, who began explaining the studio’s marketing strategy. Alison ran through a multi-tiered promotional campaign designed to create an audience for the film before it even hit theatres. Promoting a film didn’t involve just movie trailers and posters, she learned.

At the close of the meeting, Frances pulled out her cell phone, saying, “Let’s schedule that screen test.” Her message was loud and clear. She was not going to advocate a bigger budget for the film, risking her clout with her powerful husband, without assurance she wouldn’t end up with egg on her face.

Lilly caught herself chewing the inside of her cheek on the way out of the studio. Her initial excitement over the screen test had been dampened somewhat by a growing agitation as she’d listened to Alison’s run down of the pre-production marketing projects.

At the car, Lilly held up her hand. “What was that back there with the costumes?”

Jake gave her a sideways smile. “I was going to tell you at lunch, but you seemed nervous enough about today’s meeting. I ran your designs by Monty after the production party. We both agreed they’re what we need.”

She had so many drawings of Jake in her studio, she’d completely forgotten that he’d taken several with him last week.

“Monty has been pushing back on some of the budget constraints, including costumes, without a lot of success. Frances will be getting a few calls from the other studio executives after today to loosen up the budget and make it happen.”

She was feeling queasy. It seemed a lot would be riding on the impromptu screen test. As she crawled into the McLaren, she said to Jake, “Can you reign in your horses, Han Solo. I’m not feeling up to the jump into hyperspace again.”

“I’ll take it easy. I have a firm rule about only risking getting arrested once a day.” True to his word, Jake drove sedately all the way to West Hollywood. On the 101, he popped open the glove box, pulled out a white box and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she said, although she immediately recognized the iconic logo on the austere box.

“It’s a phone. Standard company-issue. Mjicon takes care of the bill. You’ve got unlimited national and international calling, and unlimited data download. Don’t go anywhere without it. I need to know I can reach you.”

Standard issue, or not, she thought the gift was most likely sparked by his irritation yesterday when he hadn’t been able to reach her on her own cell phone. Regardless, he was right. They’d be working together closely every day for the next several months. If he felt the need to call, she needed to be reachable.

She opened the box. The phone was already powered up and filled with some neat applications. She also saw that her email account was up and running.

“Wow, this is great. Although, I guess I’ll have to learn a new phone number.”

“No, you won’t. Your cell service was transferred this morning. You’ll find that your other phone won’t work. If it ever did,” he added.

That was a bit high-handed of him. Still, she’d wanted a high-tech phone. She probably wouldn’t have sprung for one this nice, in part due to the challenge of getting it set up properly. It looked like Jake had already taken care of that for her.

“Thank you,” she said, only slightly dubious.

When Jake rolled up in front of her bungalow, Lilly saw excitedly that Kyle had finally arrived and was lounging against her front porch talking on his phone. He pocketed the phone when he saw her scrambling out of the sports car as soon as the doors slid up.

Lilly bounded over to Kyle and wrapped her arms around him. Kyle picked her up and spun her around the little patch of front lawn.

“Where’s your key? You should have let yourself in,” she said breathlessly as he put her down.

“It’s in my luggage somewhere. I just got here.”

“Oh, good. Are you hungry?” she asked.

In her excitement to see Kyle, she’d practically forgotten about Jake, who walked up behind her.

Kyle stuck out his hand and confidently introduced himself. “Mr. Durant, I’m Kyle Meredith, a good friend of Lilly’s.”

Kyle was so poised, you’d never know the speculation about Jake’s sexual preferences he’d been engaging in over the phone with her several weeks ago. Jake took his hand. Although he smiled politely enough, Lilly could see that bland Jake was back. She was growing to despise bland Jake. It was bad enough that the expression made her feel self-conscious. She definitely didn’t like it when he turned it on her friends.

Jake handed over the box containing the new phone he’d given her. She’d left it behind in her hurry to exit the car.

“I’ll see you at the screening.” Tapping the box, he added, “Keep this with you. Always. And call me if you run into trouble.” The last he said eyeing Kyle.

As Jake walked toward his car, Wil pulled up. Jake and the younger man exchanged a few words before Wil returned to the SUV to unload her portfolio. Jake roared off in the McLaren, breaking his own rule about risking arrest only once a day.

Chapter 10

“I wish we had her skill on
Lord of the Rings
,” Frances said wistfully, as the lights came up in the screening room. Frances, Jake and Monty had just finished watching the screen test of Lilly’s Allegrezza.

“It wasn’t until we reviewed the first dailies in New Zealand that we learned that the effects makeup used for the high elves partially immobilized their faces. Liv’s and Cate’s performances were so stiff that we were in crisis. We had no choice but to dramatically reduce the enhancements at the last minute.

“If we’d had more time, we could have adjusted. Their performances, of course, were grand. Yet, without the effects, their beauty was much too human. Their expressions lacked the fierceness of personality that Tolkien intended. Because of that mishap, the film failed to convey the true threat of Galadriel’s temptation to take the Ring, and the depth of Arwen’s conflict and despair over abandoning the immortal elves for Aragorn, her mortal human lover.”

To Jake, Frances said, “I am sorry you had to submit to a screen test, Jake. God knows you do not need it. But I had to be certain about Lilly. I knew she had artistic talent. I was on the Academy committee that selected
Fox Hollow
. But I didn’t know how much of the credit for Gustav belonged to her. Now I do.

“This little one,” Frances said, pointing at the screen to indicate that she was talking about Lilly, “
est la crème de la crème
. As are you, Jake. That performance was exquisite. Thank you for agreeing to do this personally. You and Lilly have certainly put my concerns to rest.”

Jake, still staring at the blank screen, shook his head. “It was my pleasure.”

In truth, it was delicious torture working with Lilly. Jake had not managed to get his sexual attraction to her under control. In the hours of intense makeup sessions, he had to constantly check himself from pulling her onto his lap.

Watching the last ten minutes of the screen test, even he was shocked to see how frightening his performance had been. He had channeled all of his frustration and self-fury into that last scene. He inwardly tipped his hat to Lee Strasberg, the father of method acting. Strasberg taught that actors must draw upon their own emotions for a realistic portrayal.

“This was a useful exercise,” he said. “I hadn’t realized how much Lilly’s applications amplify my expressions. Or how dramatic Allegrezza appears when his – my – face is filmed at certain angles.

“I’ve been struggling to choose which expressions and mannerisms to keep consistent. Allegrezza is an extremely chameleonic character, changing from century to century. The audience needs something to identify with, something familiar to anticipate and look forward to. Without that, he’s just a bloody menace that no one in their right mind would choose to watch twice. Seeing him on film today helped tremendously.”

“
Un villian qu'on adore à la haine
. A villain we love to hate,” agreed Frances.

“Exactly,” said Jake.

Turning to Monty, Frances said, “If Lilly hasn’t already signed the standard one-year studio contract, I’d like to see about engaging her for a longer period.”

Jake cut in, “Her contract’s with Mjicon.” Frances looked sharply at Jake, not missing his territorial tone.

When Jake didn’t volunteer any details about his connection to Lilly, Frances said, “Well, we are fortunate to have her. I’ll talk to Carl tonight about loosening up the costume and location budget. Tell Alison to email me the numbers she needs right away.”

On Saturday at her brother’s, Lilly received a call from the Assistant Director’s assistant, Duncan, with the run down on the next few weeks’ schedule.

“Production will start at the studio for two months, then on location in Wyoming, then back to the studio. We’re slotted for Italy after that. Later set locations are tentatively scheduled for New York and Hawaii. Make sure your passport’s up to date.”

“I don’t have a passport,” she admitted.

“Well, you’ll need a certified copy of your birth certificate. Take that to the post office and they’ll take care of the rest. Do it right away. It may take a few weeks to get it back.

“You’ll get Mr. Durant’s call sheets by email within the next twenty-four hours. You need to confirm receipt,” said Duncan.

Hanging up from the curt conversation, she thought Duncan must have quite a few of these calls to make. Either that, or working so closely with Alison on a day-to-day basis had him wound up pretty tight. Alison could make coffee nervous.

The call sheets indicating the times Jake was to be on set came the following day. Lilly immediately replied that she’d received them before even opening the email attachments. When she did, she was unpleasantly surprised. Jake was scheduled to arrive at the makeup table at four-thirty a.m. each day. That meant she needed to be there before four a.m. if she was to be certain that she’d have everything ready in time. Each day’s filming wrapped at five, after which she’d have at least a half hour of cleanup. Then she would have two or three hours of prep work depending upon the complexity of the effects for each day following. Lilly paid silent homage to all of the lost sleep.

Duncan’s email instructed her to come to the studio on Monday so that someone could get her a studio pass and show her around. Since this would be her first time working on a Warner Brothers’ project, she would be required to attend an orientation on work safety.

She and Duncan exchanged a few more emails, primarily about the logistics of ordering and keeping a ready supply of the materials she would need. Duncan finally put her directly in touch with the studio’s safety officer, who connected her with the fire safety coordinator. Some of the raw materials she used required that Material Safety Data Sheets be on file with the safety officer. There were also studio rules about where she could store certain of her compounds larger than a half pint.

The fire coordinator, Campbell, was a stickler for the rules. Understandably so. In 2008, a three-alarm fire at Universal had destroyed fifty thousand archived movies and classic TV shows.

Still, Campbell’s rules threatened to create a huge problem for her. He had set himself up as gatekeeper for her supplies, which were to be stored in a warehouse next to the security office on the opposite side of the lot from the soundstage reserved for
Feast
. Nearly half a mile away. It was absolutely unworkable.

Lilly needed to establish some credibility with the fire safety coordinator, or he was going to be a constant stumbling block for her.

Knowing that losing her temper or allowing her rising panic to be heard in her voice would be exactly the wrong thing to do, she listened patiently to Campbell’s every explanation for each of the rules he’d be breaking if he did as she suggested, and let her to set up a small, locked and monitored storage area near her workspace with its own fire safety equipment, exit plan and log-in/log-out procedure.

From his condescending tone, it was obvious that Campbell did not have faith in the common sense of special effects artists. Lilly couldn’t blame him, thinking of some of her classmates when she’d gone back to school in LA to study special effects. Their carelessness had caused the campus hazmat team to deploy on more than one occasion.

During the week before filming, she elevated her negotiations with Campbell to her highest priority. When a call from Campbell interrupted a call from Jake about the results of the screening, she left Jake on hold so long he hung up. She’d had to call him back to hear Frances’ reaction.

Over days of back and forth phone calls, Lilly worked to convince Campbell that he could trust her to treat volatile materials with respect. As often as possible, she’d slip in an anecdote about working at Dow Chemical and she reminded him repeatedly that she was a chemical engineer, certified in Kansas and California.

“At Dow, we had this guy who installed a faulty butterfly valve that allowed liquid oxygen to backflow into an oil sump.” She could hear Campbell suck in his breath over the phone. “Well, I don’t have to tell you what happened when the heating element in the sump clicked on.”

“Boom!” Campbell shouted gleefully. “Some people just don’t get it.”

“You got that right. In the chemical engineering program, we were required to take over thirty hours of safety engineering courses….”
Did he get that she had a chemical engineering degree. Maybe she needed to mention it again?

“…When I got my engineer’s license, at least a third of the certification curriculum was chemical and fire safety….”

Okay, that last part might have been an exaggeration. Still, she could tell she was making progress. And she probably did have more training in safe chemical storage than Campbell.

Finally, by Wednesday she’d gotten through to him. Campbell met her at the satellite room off of the makeup department devoted to her use. He’d been busy. She could have run a graduate level chemistry course in the room.

Campbell showed her around, not hiding his pride at what he’d accomplished. There were six full-size fire extinguishers, an industrial washing station and a heavy metal storage pod the size of a restaurant walk-in refrigerator in one corner, complete with locking door and log book, for storing large quantities of her supplies.

Patting the sidewall of the storage pod, he said, “This baby’s bomb proof. And, if you’ll look up, you’ll see we’ve installed extra sprinklers for the building’s automatic fire system.”

She dubbed the room her “Lab” and thanked Campbell profusely. “This is excellent, Campbell. I can’t thank you enough. It looks like you’ve thought of everything.” Too much, really. It was a bit of an overkill. Still, she wasn’t about to disparage what he’d done for her.

Looking around a second time, she joked, “Where’s the radiation monitoring station?”

Campbell snickered. “Now that’s above my pay grade.”

Campbell lingered as she began unpacking the molds she’d brought from home. She was sure he had other things to do, but he kept hanging around, getting in her way. Lilly finally had to shoo him out so she could get to work.

Lilly spent the next days ordering supplies and filling the pod. Thinking she might as well get used to the grueling schedule, she arrived at the studio in the wee hours of the morning and did not leave until after dark. The security guards became so familiar with her diminutive figure on the green Vespa, they didn’t bother to leave the guard shack and just waved her on through.

Since the screen test session with Jake, she’d streamlined her palates for efficiency and organized two multi-tiered rolling trays with everything she needed, segregated by body part.

She didn’t want any wasted movement applying Jake’s makeup. Toward the end of the screening work, she’d sensed that he was frustrated with the amount of time it was taking her to apply the more complicated effects. She wouldn’t let that happen again.